Cavett and Rich Take On Petraeus and Crocker

Martin and Lewis... Rogers and Hammerstein ... Sandler and Young ... Sonny and Cher ... Evans and Novak (or better known, Errors and No Facts) ... Tom and Jerry

I think you get the idea.

Alas, after this past week, we add the dynamic duo of Petraeus and Crocker to the list, which, as it were, played out more along the lines of Fric and Frac, or Tweedledee and Tweedledum

The pomp and circumstance, the glorious fanfare was, well, rather muted this time around.

It's getting harder and harder, no matter how many medals and scrambled eggs you have on your uniform, to spin the disaster that is Bush's Iraq War.

When the biggest buzz word to come out the hearings this year was “fragile and reversible,” as the Golden Boy General spoke of Iraq, you know its big-time sucksville happening over there.

Which leads us to two, rather entertaining, Op-Eds today in the NYT.

First up, was the regular Sunday Column of Frank Rich, calling our new hearings' stars on stage with "The Petraeus-Crocker Show Gets the Hook", and lamenting how much the country has tuned out of Iraq.

Speaking on a screening he attended of the new Errol Morris documentary, "Standard Operating Procedure”, on the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Rich cites how poorly any number of the Iraq War films have performed.

This is not merely a showbiz phenomenon but a leading indicator of where our entire culture is right now. It’s not just torture we want to avoid. Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the war or oppose it. They want to look away, period, and have been doing so for some time.

Then Rich lays out how its all, but over in Iraq;

The original stakes (saving the world from mushroom clouds and an alleged ally of Osama bin Laden) evaporated so far back they seem to belong to another war entirely. What are the stakes we are asked to believe in now? In the largely unwatched House hearings on Wednesday, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, tried to get at this by asking what some 4,000 “sons and daughters” of America had died for.

The best General Petraeus could muster was a bit of bloodless Beltway-speak — “national interests” — followed by another halfhearted attempt to overstate Iraq’s centrality to the war on Al Qaeda and a future war on Iran. He couldn’t even argue that we’re on a humanitarian mission on behalf of the Iraqi people. That would require him to acknowledge that roughly five million of those people, 60 percent of them children, are now refugees receiving scant help from either our government or Nuri al-Maliki’s. That’s nearly a fifth of the Iraqi population — the equivalent of 60 million Americans — and another source of our shame.

Grim stuff but a good read just the same

"Try talking English, General. You mean more soldiers."

Going a different route with our newly-crowned pair, was the legandary Dick Cavett, the erudite writer, talkshow host and man of great wit.

Cavett weighs in - hysterically - with "Memo to Petraeus & Crocker: More Laughs, Please", where he with great mirth, and a fine ear, surgically cuts through the "sesquipedalianism" of P&C;

But back to our story. Never in this breathing world have I seen a person clog up and erode his speaking — as distinct from his reading — with more “uhs,” “ers” and “ums” than poor Crocker. Surely he has never seen himself talking: “Uh, that is uh, a, uh, matter that we, er, um, uh are carefully, uh, considering.” (Not a parody, an actual Crocker sentence. And not even the worst.)

These harsh-on-the-ear insertions, delivered in his less than melodious, hoarse-sounding tenor, are maddening. And their effect is to say that the speaker is painfully unsure of what he wants, er, um, to say.

Cavett was just warming up.

Petraeus commits a different assault on the listener. And on the language. In addition to his own pedantic delivery, there is his turgid vocabulary. It reminds you of Copspeak, a language spoken nowhere on earth except by cops and firemen when talking to “Eyewitness News.” Its rule: never use a short word where a longer one will do. It must be meant to convey some misguided sense of “learnedness” and “scholasticism” — possibly even that dread thing, “intellectualism” — to their talk. Sorry, I mean their “articulation.”

No crook ever gets out of the car. A “perpetrator exits the vehicle.” (Does any cop say to his wife at dinner, “Honey, I stubbed my toe today as I exited our vehicle”?) No “man” or “woman” is present in Copspeak. They are replaced by that five-syllable, leaden ingot, the “individual.” The other day, there issued from a fire chief’s mouth, “It contributed to the obfuscation of what eventually eventuated.” This from a guy who looked like he talked, in real life, like Rocky Balboa. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Who imposes this phony, academic-sounding verbal junk on brave and hard-working men and women who don’t need the added burden of trying to talk like effete characters from Victorian novels?

Cavett goes on, cutting the Generalspeak to ribbons (no pun intended, as you will read, at the beginning of the essay).

Now, if we can only get a few more of these mismatched pairs up in front of Congressional and Senate committees

Like Miers and Rove ... Addington and Yoo...

And, of course, the super mega, Top A-List, war-launchers and torture choreographers ... Cheney and Bush!


Bonus Links

Think Progress: ‘I don’t even know who Petraeus and Crocker are.’

Logan Murphy/C&L: Bob Schieffer Commentary: “No Longer Any Good Answers” On Iraq

Ambassador Crocker Meets Eddie Izzard

"He is Iraq's Katrina itself"

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Sadly, it's looking less, and less, likely that we will see him exit the White House, handcuffed, in a perp walk - as he so richly deserves.

Mostly due to a brain-dead, Constitution-blinders-firmly-affixed-Congress (How big an outcry from our elected representatives have you heard about the bombshell news the other day, that the torture program was choreographed directly out of the Bush Grindhouse?), he gets to wear his real, and proverbial, flightsuit and play "The Commander Guy" for a number of dwindling months.

And inhabiting the Unreality Bubble he has ensconced himself in, Lord knows what further havoc he will reek.

Especially when he's running his policy speeches up the Neocon flagpole, before he gives them.

Wants to make sure, I suppose, there's enough warmongering in it.

Juan Cole writes/reports one of the best blogs on what's happening in Iraq (and the policies behind it; Another good one is Abu Aardvark).

Cole nails the Bush Legacy;

War turns Republics into dictatorships. The logic is actually quite simple. The Constitution says that the Congress is responsible for declaring war. But in 2002 Congress turned that responsibility over to Bush, gutting the constitution and allowing the American Right to start referring to him not as president but as 'commander in chief' (that is a function of the civilian presidency, not a title.)

So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.

That is not a Republic. That is a military dictatorship achieved not by coup but by moral laziness.

And, as Gene Robinson notes today, the Bush Grindhouse, cluelessly, is going through the motions, to pass this mess on to the next president.

Of course, Bush long ago lost any credibility with Congress and the American people on Iraq. It's understandable that he hides behind Petraeus's breastplate of medals and Crocker's thatch of gray hair, sending these loyal and able public servants to explicate the inexplicable: What realistic goal is the United States trying to achieve in Iraq? And in what parallel universe is this open-ended occupation making our nation safer?

Even the most basic question of any war is undefined: Who is the enemy? It was almost painful listening to Petraeus as he faced reporters yesterday and was asked whether Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army were friend or foe. His tortured answer, translated into English, was yes.

But thanks to Cole today, the Legacy Shopping is over.

Ironically, what officers like Petraeus need from Bush is not deference but vigorous leadership in the political realm. Bush needs to intervene to work for political reconciliation in Iraq if Petraeus's military achievements are to bear fruit. But Bush seems incapable of actually conducting policy, as opposed to starting wars. Bush happened to Iraq just as he happened to New Orleans. He cannot do the hard work of patiently addressing disasters and ameliorating them. He just wants to set people to fighting. Crush the Sadr Movement, perhaps the most popular political movement in Iraq? He's all for it. Risk provoking a wider conflagration in the Middle East by worsening relations with Iran? Sounds like a great idea to him. Bush campaigned on being a 'uniter not a divider' in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq's Brownie. He is Iraq's Katrina itself.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Phew!

That's a nutshell, alright ... A pretty, darned good nutshell I would say.

Last summer, The Garlic put forth a proposal - and it's still open and viable - that could end this madness.

Please, someone, step up and go for it!

Bonus Links

Amy Goodman: “Iraq Does Not Exist Anymore”: Journalist Nir Rosen on How the U.S. Invasion of Iraq Has Led to Ethnic Cleansing, a Worsening Refugee Crisis and the Destabilization of the Middle East

Bob Herbert: The $2 Trillion Nightmare

12 Former Army Captains: The Real Iraq We Knew

Wanted Dead Or ... Ahh, The Hell With It .. I'll Let The Next President Get'em ...

New Bush Export - Preemptive Horseshit!

Ambassador Crocker Meets Eddie Izzard

Or, "The Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said ‘Mr. Ambassador you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq,’ which would you pick?"

Sometime ago (nearly two-years) the Friedman Unit, after ol' Lead-Luvin' Tom, was established, designating the term to mark six-months as a unit of time for things to turn around in Iraq.

So, with the Golden Boy, General Petraeus yesterday, once again, calling for extra time, now 45-days (to evaluate things after they stop the troop pulldown), the question to be asked is what do you call it, in relation to the Friedman Unit.

The Petraeus Pint?

The Petraeus Horseshoe (both for his sunny optimism, and with a nod to Colt 45 Malt Liquor)?

The Bush Grindhouse's marketing seminar didn't go so well

In fact, if it were a sporting event, say, a basketball game, the various Senators can retire to the bench, and bring in the second team scrubs to mop up.

We have heard, for years, the bedrock principle for our being in Iraq (keep in mind, this has shifted many times), was that Iraq was the "Central Front on the War on Terror".

It was Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, all the time.

If we moved one inch away from Iraq, teams of Al Qaeda would swoop in to that inch, and build a metropolis of terror in it.

Hell, even announcing that we would move that one inch out of Iraq, brought sordid tales of Al Qaeda, impatiently waiting at the border, moving van engines running.

Well, that got blown out of the water yesterday, and not by some "defeatocrat" or anybody "Feeling morally, intellectually confused?"

No, it came from the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.

From Think Progress;

SEN. BIDEN: Mr. Ambassador, is Al Qaeda a greater threat to US interests in Iraq, or in the Afghan-Pakistan border region?

AMB. CROCKER: Mr. Chairman, Al Qaeda is a strategic threat to the United States wherever it is, in my view–

SEN. BIDEN: Where is most of it? If you could take it out? You had a choice: Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said ‘Mr. Ambassador you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq,’ which would you pick?

AMB. CROCKER: Well given the progress that has been made again Al Qaeda in Iraq, the significant decrease in its capabilities, the fact that it is solidly on the defensive, and not in a position of–

SEN. BIDEN: Which would you pick, Mr. Ambassador?

AMB. CROCKER: I would therefore pick Al Qaeda in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

SEN BIDEN: That would be a smart choice.

Think Progress also has the video of it, so check it out.

And that brings us to our Eddie Izzard moment.

Writing in Salon today is Mark Benjamin, with "Sizing up Petraeus on Iraq; The top U.S. general gave Congress an upbeat assessment of the war Tuesday. Here's the reality behind the rhetoric".

And there's this gem;

Claim: The Iraqis have redesigned their flag -- which is a big deal because it suggests that Iraq is pulling together as a nation and that things will turn out well.

Crocker: "In January, a vote by the Council of Representatives to change the design of the Iraqi flag means the flag now flies in all parts of the country for the first time in years."

We now turn it over to Mr. Izzard.

Eddie Izzard - Do you have a flag?




Time to cue up Que Sera Sera...


Bonus Through The Looking Glass Links

Ezra Klein: A Superman Approach to Foreign Policy; Our nation's favorite comic book hero might have had the right idea: Use power sparingly and judiciously

Barry Crimmins: Prevarication Nation

Robert Scheer: Everything His President Wants to Hear

Nicole Belle/C&L: The Situation Room: Michael Ware On Who Wields Power In Iraq

"What If Spartacus Had To Account For 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols ..."

Tom Engelhardt: Launching Brand Petraeus

Top Ten Cloves: Ways To Tell Your Newly Constructed Iraq Embassy Is Poorly Built

News Item: Iraq Embassy Cost Rises $144 Million Amid Project Delays

10. The office pool is firmly betting on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series over when they get to move into the Embassy

9. Whispers in Washington are surfacing, that this wouldn't be happening if Condi Rice had a husband

8. You keep getting unsolicited suggestions from the contractors building Iran's nuclear plants

7. Even Andy Card says he couldn't market, no matter what month he tried, something this fucked up

6. Everytime General Petraeus criticizes Prime Minister Maliki, Maliki just snickers back "Embassy"

5. Instead of sending and receiving cables, cables are what’s holding the building up

4. You reach out, but architect Frank Gehry turns you down, wanting no part of it

3. Embassy staff prefers to work and live in the moving vans

2. Your query on how to fix it stumps the Ask This Old House guys

1. You keep getting unsolicited suggestions from the people that run the Winchester House


Bonus Bad Embassy Riffs

McClatchy Newspapers: Even sprinkler systems fail at U.S. embassy in Baghdad

TimesOnLine: Welcome to the new US embassy; It’s bigger than Saddam’s palace and, with a cinema, gym and pool, is the safest and smartest place to live in Iraq...

Tom Engelhardt: Imperial life in a brand-new city; What plans for a gigantic new U.S. Embassy in Iraq say about the Bush administration, the occupation of Iraq, and Americans themselves.

Good Post Alert - Launching Brand Petraeus

Well, we had the prelude, and pregame festivities... Not to mention The Commander Guy's extravaganza at Camp Cupcake, perhaps to, among other dubious things, drop off some autographed copies of his new book.

But today, it's SHOWTIME, the real-time running of the gameplan, with the well-anticipated spotlight being shone on General Extraordinaire, David Petraeus, and his Robin-like sidekick, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, the guy that lives in the biggest house - with full services and amenities - in Baghdad.

They are still, at the time of this writing, in-session, with the questioning, pretty much - on how hard or soft - coming along party lines.

So, before you start wading through the transcripts, and swimming through the pundits, check this out.

Tom Engelhardt, over at TomDispatch.com, offered his third installment of his "By The Numbers" series yesterday;

Launching Brand Petraeus

It's a great read, so check it out (as well as the links there to Part 1 and Part 2)